8.25.2008

Re: The Beginning

Well, I've made it! Shaunda Helm and I arrived at Gimbie AdventistHospital at 11:00 p.m. local time (4:00 p.m. EST) Wednesday, afterquite the journey. Let me give you a brief update on what's beenhappening so far. 

Our adventures started before we even got to Africa. First, whilechecking in at Dulles, I was a bit worried because my bags were allpretty heavy. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to bring the beehive foundations that I'd stuffed in my bags at the last minute. Sureenough, after hoisting the bags on the scale, each one was about 7-8lbs overweight. Fortunately, God had led us to a merciful ticketagent, who allowed me to take the bags without any hassle at all. Andthat was just the beginning of how God was watching out for us!

About an hour and a half after leaving Dulles airport at 9:00 p.m.Monday, our pilot told us that they'd been having a few glitches andthat we were going to have to return to the airport. Nobody was veryhappy to hear about the delay. But after experiencing a rather bumpylanding and then being promptly surrounded by a convoy of fire trucksand ambulances, we managed to swallow our complaints. Prayers atwork?After a night in the terminal, we left Tuesday morning. I wasfortunate to meet two very gracious Ethiopian gentlemen while on theplane who kindly told me a little bit about their country and helpedme start learning some Amharic words. One man even showed me someEthiopian coins, insisting that I keep them. Almost everybody I'vemet so far has been very friendly.

We finally arrived in Addis Ababa at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.After collecting our bags and changing some money, Shaunda and I gotin the (rather long) queue to go through Customs. I'd heard storiesof other people having some pretty intense experiences gettingthrough, and I was praying pretty hard as we approached the front ofthe line. Here again, we saw God's hand at work as one of theofficials came up to me and asked if I had anything to declare. Itold him I had changed some money in the airport and that I also had alaptop with me. "Okay," he said motioning, "Go through." I somewhatincredulously gathered my bags and walked past the long line ofpeople. Shaunda quickly explained that she was with me, and he lether through as well. I kept expecting somebody to yell for us tostop, but nobody did. What an answer to prayer!

Now we just had to find Ashebir, the person sent to meet us. Wedidn't see anybody with signs and after looking around for a fewminutes, I decided to find a phone and call one of the numbers Paulhad given me. Using the coins that my friendly seatmate had given me,I was able to get a hold of Ashebir. He and Gemeda, the BusinessManager for Gimbie and Laura, an incoming medical student from the UKhad been about to leave because they heard that we weren't going toarrive until later. Another thing to add to the praise list

We spent a little time figuring out how to pack everything in the LandCruiser and then we were off! Driving through Addis is really anexperience. There are beggars everywhere; sitting on the sidewalks,sprawled in the middle of traffic roundabouts, sleeping on themedians. . . Many of them are children. Sad stuff:(

Heading out of town, the traffic soon thinned out. The road itselfwas pretty nice for a lot of the way; apparently a contracting companyfrom South Korea recently finished constructing one of the nicesthighways in the country from Addis to Ambo, a distance of about 120km. There were still plenty of obstacles however. In addition to allof the people bringing stuff in to sell in Addis, there were lots ofdonkeys, cows, goats, and sheep. They all seemed pretty unfazed byour hurtling Land Cruiser, which led to a lot of honking and swervingand screeching of brakes. Auto horns are put to good use here; adouble honk is the equivalent of saying, "Hey, I'm coming." In fact,it's one of the few road rules that is actually followed.

The scenery is beautiful one you get out into the country. Everythingis very green (unless it's mud, in which case it's red) and there arelots of eucalyptus trees and shrubs and other foliage. I want todescribe a few of the most commonly appearing sights along the road.One is a few cows off grazing along the side in the care of a six orseven-year old child who will frequently jump up and shout "Faranji!"as soon as he or she sees you. Another is some women bent over underhuge bundles of sticks they're carrying to the market. Another arethe piles of logs and dirt randomly piled on the (nonexistent)shoulders of the road. I guess the dirt is for repairing the road andthe logs are waiting to be sold to trucks coming along. We even saw afew monkeys.

We made pretty good time to Ambo, arriving around 12:30 p.m. Ashebirneeded to repair something in the suspension for the Land Cruiser, sowe stopped at a really nice hotel and had lunch. We had injera andsome awesome shiro. For those who have never had the privilege ofeating this delectable food, injera is a type of thin, sour pancakemade from fermented teff (endemic grain) dough which serves as a plateand, when torn into pieces, as a spoon and fork also. Shiro is thesauce that goes on top of it, generally incorporating lentils, onions,spices, etc. It's wonderful stuff! Then we went out to shay, a kindof really sweet tea, served in a little thimble cup. Finally we metup with Ashebir and continued on our way.

From Ambo to Nkempte, a distance of about 180 km, the road is not sogood. Ashebir was trying to make up for lost time, so we careeredalong at quite a good clip. He's pretty good and we missed most ofthe major caverns in the road, but we hit enough that just as weentered Nkempte (after about 5 more hours), we had to stop and changea flat. This must be a fairly frequent occurrence, as Ashebir carriestwo spares with him.

The next section of road is pretty good (at least it's paved most ofthe way), so we were able to travel the remaining 120 km in about 2hours. We saw a hyena during this section. The seating arrangementswere Ashebir, me, and Gameda in the front and Laura and Shaunda in theback seat, holding back a cascade of blankets and luggage. Theluggage area was completely jammed full of stuff and there was a fewmore bags of oranges and guavas, propane tanks, and some more blanketsstrapped on top. I had a really hard time staying awake during theselast two hours, but since it was virtually impossible to rest my headin one place for longer than twenty seconds, I had the interestingexperience of mini-dreams every time I closed my eyes

We finally got to the hospital just before 11:00 p.m. It sure wasnice to see Paul and Petra's smiling faces! They gave us a very warmwelcome and after unloading everything, invited us down to theirhouse, where after giving them some of the things I'd brought over forthem (and showing off the bee foundations) we fell asleep.

The next morning Paul kindly woke me up at 9:00 so I could startgetting used to the new schedule. He gave me a tour and a littleorientation and then I started right in. My first task was updatingthe hospital's price list. Inflation is about 15.9% so far this year,and that's really eating into the hospital's profits. I became alittle bit more familiar with the hospital as I worked my way throughthe departments trying to figure out what the current rates were forthings. (This is proving to be a bigger task than I anticipated asI'm not quite finished yet, 3 days later.)

The next day, Petra and I went running at 6:00. It was just gettinglight and there weren't very many people around, which is good,because they're not used to seeing anybody running for exercise, andfarenges to boot. The mud was pretty sticky; Petra encouraged me bysaying that it was like having built-in leg weights! Boy, if I keeprunning with the weights and the altitude will really get me in goodshape. (Andrew will never be able to keep up;).Later that day, Shaunda and Petra and I went out to Dongoro clinic.It was really neat to see how one of the outpost clinics operated.The nurse there, Ngadaye, was pretty overwhelmed with all thepatients, so we brought along another nurse to help out for theafternoon. They are set up in a little round hut and the patientscome up to her table and tell her what's wrong. She does a littleexamination and then gives them a prescription or refers them toGimbie. They then take the prescription over to the cashier and payfor their pills or injection or test or whatever. Often they don'thave enough money to pay for the $2 or $3 dollars worth of meds so shetries to prescribe something cheaper. Then they come back and shedispenses the meds and explains how to take them. It was pretty crazyas she often had eight or nine people clustered around her. I triedto act as crowd control and just help wherever I could.After the clinic closed, Shaunda and I counted the money brought inover the previous two days and compared it with the patient receipts.Then I returned the money and receipts to Gimbie. We also bought anew lock ($1.13) and put it on the door to cut down on the loss ofdrugs. Petra found a good deal on some musi faringi (sweet littlebananas) and a jackfruit (a huge thing, about the size of twobasketballs and weighing around 25 lbs!) so we managed to fit theminto the Land Cruiser, along with all 10 of us

Sabbath was very welcome! Friday night, Paul encouraged us to takeshowers because the water is often off on the weekends. Warm water isquite scarce, so showers are usually quite short. Fortunately we'vehad water and electricity pretty consistently so far.Paul and I headed off to pull together something for the SabbathSchool lesson, which was about the Apostle Peter. TheEnglish-speakers have our own Sabbath School, and we had a really neatdiscussion. About 10:40 we headed over to church and were treatedwith an amazing performance by the children's choir. They sangseveral songs, first in decently recognizable English, and then inOromifa. It was powerful! When they sing, they really sing! Theywere ably led by an eleven or twelve-year-old choir director

Petra sang with the A choir (I guess they have B and C choir too) forseveral songs and Shaunda accompanied them on the piano. They sanghymns that I recognize (ex: Crown Him) but in Oromifa and they werepretty good too. Next AY choir sang a song based on Matthew 24. Theguitar player accompanying them was grandly out of tune, but nobodyseemed to notice. Then Fromsa, the head gardener for the hospitalpreached a sermon. The church kindly provides an interpreter, so itwas possible to follow the sermon.

We had potluck at Paul and Petra's house for lunch, along with all ofthe British (and one Canadian) medical students, Linda and Amber(visiting midwives from the US), and Becky (the matron, alsoAmerican). The food is generally fantastic here. I'm going to postanother blog just about the food, but probably on the hospital blog.The highlight of the meal was the sugar cane.

Afterwards, Paul, Petra, Laura, Becky, and I headed out for a hike.We went down the hill and toured the hospital garden (needs someattention), and then hopped the chain link fence and went exploring.We climbed a couple hills, forded two streams, fought stinging nettlesand a few biting ants, clambered up trees, picked some berries (whichI succeeded in turning into mush by the time we returned), foundevidence of African Porcupines, as well as some lovely flowers, andmet a few of the locals, before heading back. The evening we spent ingood conversation and a quick game of 7-Up before heading to bed.

That's pretty much what's happened so far. Shaunda's got her handsfull figuring out how to help manage the outer clinics; startingtoday, I'm going to be in charge of the finances for the clinics, thenursing school and the upcoming construction project. Henock, (theaccountant I work with) and I are going to take inventory for the restof the week first, before I really get started on that.

It's incredibly busy and it's going to be a huge task just to keep thehospital's head above water. But God is here; He's done miracles toget us this far, and He's got lots more in store, I'm sure. Keep usin your prayers!

Excelsior

-- Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewingof your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable andperfect will of God.Romans 12:2

8 comments:

What a crazy trip that you had! Glad you made it there safely. We will be praying for you and all over there! Keep us in Thailand in your prayers as well. Thanks for keeping in touch. God bless you, my fellow SM!

Wow! I was totally engrossed in that story. I could really picture it. Thanks for sharing. And yes, whenever you dedicate your life to work for God, He will do amazingly unforgettable things for you and through you. Don't worry.